A 20-year-old woman has been arrested and charged with murder after the months-long disappearance of a Georgia man, according to reports.
Destiny Stephens is also charged with concealing a death. Warrants indicate that two other people – another woman and a man — are also connected to the crime.
Leondre Flynt went missing on July 29 after he told family he left for a seemingly routine trip to pick up car parts at the auto shop. His phone was never turned on again and his maroon GMC Canyon pickup truck was found in Detroit.
In August, Flynt’s missing persons case out of Gwinnett was transferred to the Homicide Unit over at the Atlanta Police Department when it was discovered the last place he was known to visit was an apartment in Buckhead. Flynt’s family said he’d been talking to a woman he recently met online who lived off Peachtree Road.
Now, warrants are shedding gruesome new details behind the disappearance of Flynt.
According to the warrants, Flynt left his family’s home in Loganville on July 29 and spoke to a family member around 10:45 a.m. That was the last time his family ever heard from him again.
His family was able to later access his iCloud and provide the phone’s account to law enforcement. Police later found out that Flynt had been communicating with a woman on that same day and that Flynt had plugged in his GPS directions to the Marquis at Buckhead apartment complex on Colonial Holmes Drive, the warrants allege.
Police later came to find out there had been a shots fired call that same day, just after 12:15 p.m. A resident in the leasing office had said they had a bullet hole that had penetrated the wall of their unit from the residence across the hall, according to the warrant. The leasing office then contacted the owner of the unit who said that a woman had picked up a gun and accidentally fired a shot off.
As the investigation continued into Flynt’s disappearance, the warrants state that police plugged in Flynt’s pickup truck into the license plate reader and found out the truck had entered the Lowe’s parking lot on Caroline Street NE in Atlanta. It was there that police found video surveillance of Stephens and the other woman mentioned in the warrant get out of Flynt’s truck and go inside.
It was inside the store where they bought a handsaw and bolt cutters, according to the warrants. Later that night, doorbell camera footage captured the man mentioned in the warrant moving “bulk items on a furniture dolly” from the apartment unit in the direction of the elevators.
Stephens was identified through the leasing account of the resident’s owner, as she allegedly used the same card number to make the purchase at Lowe’s that was also listed on the apartment billing records, the warrants allege. A search of her phone records revealed that Stephens also lived inside the same unit at the Marquis at Buckhead.
The warrants also stated that the phone record search revealed she was also in the area of the apartment complex when the shots fired call came in on July 29 and at the Lowe’s when they suspected she was the other woman as they allegedly purchased a handsaw and bolt cutters.
After police used OnStar to track Flynt’s GMC Canyon to the parking lot of a CVS Pharmacy in Detroit, they found out the location was just 20 minutes away from the address listed on the Michigan ID card of the man who was the leaseholder of the apartment in Atlanta. This is the same person the warrant alleges who told the apartment leasing office that a gun went off when his “female friend was handling it.”
Authorities searched for Flynt’s truck there, but never found it, according to the warrants.
Just a few weeks later on Aug. 16, maintenance workers at the Marquis at Buckhead said they found blood on the ground of the fourth floor. Officers were called out to the complex where they found “dark reddish stains on the railing” near the alley that looked over the dumpsters, in addition to a blood trail that led to the parking garage, the warrants allege.
Atlanta Police then obtained a search warrant for the Buckhead apartment. Inside, they found the furniture dolly from the surveillance video, two gun boxes and other items brought in for evidence. Police also sprayed Luminol inside, where they found a chemical that provided proof someone in the apartment had been bleeding, according to the warrants.
Another search warrant was obtained for the Instagram account for the other woman mentioned in the documents. The warrant alleges authorities found that she had been messaging with a friend around the time of the suspected murder. The messages from her stated that she was attacked inside her apartment and that someone “Shot and killed her assailant,” the warrants state.
The investigation concluded that Flynt was shot and killed at the Marquis at Buckhead apartment complex on July 29 and that his body was later disposed of. They have yet to determine the shooter, but Atlanta Police said that Stephens, and the other two people all contributed to Flynt’s death and concealment of his body.
Stephens was arrested Oct. 12 and charged with murder and concealing the death of another, according to jail records.
Credit: Fulton County Sheriff’s Office
Destiny Stephens was arrested and charged with murder and concealing the death of another in Leondre Flynt’s killing.
It’s unclear at this time where authorities stand with the case against the other two people mentioned in Stephens’ arrest warrant.
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